The Carpenter

An old carpenter about to retire is telling his boss about his plans to stop working in construction and enjoy life with his wife and kids. He is so excited about retiring that he wasn’t looking forward to anything else. All he wanted was to retire.

The boss was upset about losing a good worker and as a personal favor, asked the man to work on the construction of one last house. The old carpenter didn’t want to accept, but he couldn’t deny his boss one last favor.

He took the job, but it was clear that his heart wasn’t in it. Consequently he was careless and used inferior material on the construction of the home. It was a sad way to finish such an excellent career with so many years of total dedication to his craft.

When the house was completed his boss was there to inspect it. He gave the key to the house to the old carpenter and said, “This is your house. It’s a gift for you after so many years of hard work.”

The old carpenter was shocked. “What a shame!”, he thought. If he had known that he was his house, he would have done things differently…

That’s how it is with all of us. We construct our day-to-day lives carelessly without giving the proper attention to detail and then we have to live in the house we built. Afterwards we think that we could have done things differently, but time doesn’t come back. Too late now…

Remember that you are the carpenter of your own life. You construct your life a little bit per day – you hit a nail here, build a wall there and so on…

Author Unknown